The Year 2006
Has there ever been a year when there have been more good films but not great films, and those good films of almost the exact same quality? At the National Society of Film Critics, our vote for Best Film went six exhausting rounds without any concensus, and ended up a split between Capote and A History of Violence. Which was better? I still don't know.
I voted for A History of Violence (it lost by one vote) but I could just have easily gone the other way. Or voted for Munich, Brokeback Mountain, or The Squid and the Whale. All good. None masterly. more

Year End - 2000
A reporter from USA Today called me recently about a column I'd penned in the Phoenix declaring 2000 the worst year in the 85-year history of Hollywood. "Didn't you write exactly the same thing last year?" he asked. more